The last month has been testing on our family to say the least. In Sleepless in Seattle, there's a quote that says, "What is that called, when everything intersects?" And Tom Hanks answers, "The Bermuda Triangle."
I've definitely felt like the odds were stacked against us. First of all, adding a newborn to any family is an adjustment, but honestly, the first month wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Then around 5 or 6 weeks, Grant seemed to get a little more difficult. I've always thought that he was more demanding than Meili, but maybe he knew he needed to be just to get some kind of attention in the family. But at about 5 weeks, I noticed that he just never seemed content, and would just kind of squirm all the time when he was laying down. One night, I handed him off to Josh when he got home from work, like I usually do, as I ran around the house doing laundry and dishes, etc. And it seemed like Grant cried the whole night. Josh was at a loss with him, but I just kind of rolled my eyes, thinking, "I deal with it all day. Now it's your turn." Josh spent that night researching colic online. My mom came up to watch Grant the next day, and I made a joke to her about how difficult Josh thinks Grant is.
I called my mom half through the day while I was at work, and she said, "Well I'm having a hard time finding something that will make him happy." She said that she couldn't get him to sleep, and she couldn't do much with Meili all day because he was grumpy all day. I started thinking that maybe there was something going on with Grant if Grandma who was willing to hold him all day couldn't even keep him happy. I told my mom that maybe he needed better naps. So I took him home and immediately put him down for a nap and he slept for a couple hours.
It seemed like it just got worse and worse for almost a week. I tried to create a nap routine, but no matter how long I rocked him, he would wake up the second I put him down. We had tried gas drops, and I called the Doctor's office and talked with the nurse about colic. She asked me if he seemed to be swallowing even when he wasn't eating or if he spit up a lot because she was wondering about acid reflux. I didn't notice either of those symptoms (until she mentioned them, of course, then it totally seemed like maybe he had reflux.) Then I talked with a girl in the mother's room at church, and she said that he doctor recommended that she pump half an ounce of milk before she fed her baby, because the milk at the beginning has more sugar and is harder for babies to digest. That totally made sense to me! (Especially because my diet had been so high in sugar lately anyway.) But then when I went home and started researching I read online about a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance. The symptoms were that the baby wanted to eat very frequently, that mom had more milk than the baby ate at each feeding, big babies-everything seemed to fit perfectly, but since it seemed like breastmilk was more complicated than I originally thought, I didn't want to screw him up even more than he already was, so I decided I wouldn't do anything differently until I talked with a lactation consultant.
That Sunday evening was really hard. Josh and I both were totally at a loss as to what to do with him. And I was dreading the next day because I was going to be on my own again. Add to that the fact that Meili had essentially been ignored for the last week while we were trying to figure out what was wrong with Grant. So she had 3 accidents in one day, and wasn't listening to a word either Josh or I said anymore. Plus, I of course was so exhausted, and I'm sure my emotions were influencing a lot of my decisions.
I spent a good chunk of that Monday crying. I made 3 calls, one to the doctor's office and scheduled an appointment for Thursday, one to the lactation consultant and made an appointment for Friday, and one to my mom and asked her if we could come to her house on Wednesday just to maintain my sanity. Meili was really sweet, and whenever I was crying, she would ask if she could get me some water or one of her animals. That night I told Josh how hard the day had been, and Grant slept for hours in the swing, just to make me look like a crazy woman.
But from there it seemed to get better. He was still high maintenance but he didn't seem to be so uncomfortable and squirmy, and as long as someone was holding him, he was fine. So I kept my appointment with my mom, and it was so good just to get out of the house, and talk things over for a whole day. I ended up canceling my doctor's appointment and the appointment with the lactation consultant. And life was do-able again, but by no means easy.
I mentioned that Grant was fine as long as he was being held-which is difficult when you have a three year old, and a job, and dinner to make and laundry to do, etc. Plus, the Credit Union's merger was finalized this month, so Josh has been working about 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, and still going in on Saturdays. Then he has meetings for church on Sunday, Young Men's on Tuesday, basketball on Wednesdays... and the list goes on. I definitely feel like a single parent pretty often these days. On Monday of this week, we were feeding the senior missionaries in our ward. So most of the day I was focused on making sure that I got dinner in the oven etc. because it actually had to be done at a specific time as opposed to waiting until whenever I could get around to it like usual. I put Meili down for her nap, and figured I had a good 2 hours to get Grant to fall dead asleep so I could put him, and even if he only took a half hour nap, I could make it work. I rocked him for 45 minutes and he never really fell deep asleep. So I gave up when it was absolutely necessary. I put him in the swing, and he screamed the entire time I washed potatoes and put them in the oven (and woke Meili up, I might add.) I made the rest of the meal with him in a back pack screaming at me, and someone had to hold him the entire time the missionaries were at our house.
On Tuesday, I decided that enough was enough. After researching online about crying it out, I decided it was time. (We had to let Meili cry it out, and it worked for her, but she was 10 months old. 2 months seems so young to me.) But I figured if he was going to cry non-stop regardless, we might as well let it be in the name of a good nap routine.
I waited till he was showing signs of being tired, swaddled him, and put him in his crib in a mostly dark room. He cried for 5 minutes. I went in and rubbed his belly and sang to him till he calmed down. He cried for 7 minutes and fell asleep. I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT A TOTAL OF 12 MINUTES OF CRYING WAS STANDING BETWEEN ME AND HAVING A FUNCTIONAL LIFE AGAIN. He only took a nap for about a half an hour, (but you would be amazed what I can get done in a half an hour these days) then he would cry, fall asleep for another 10 minutes, cry, fall asleep for another 15 minutes, and I let him kind of continue that for about an hour total. When I went in to get him, I felt so bad because he had tears covering his face, and his eyes were so red. But like I said, our current lifestyle wasn't working for anyone-Grant included.
On Wednesdays I have a friend who watches the kids during the day while I go to work. So I told her about letting him cry, and when I went to pick him up, she said that he had taken an hour nap, woke up, ate, and then slept for another 3+ hours. I think this kid was so sleep deprived, he didn't know which way was up.
As for today, it was the first day in a LONG time that we finally had nowhere to go, and Grant didn't spend half the day in a carseat. So I put him down wide awake for his first nap. He cried for 30 seconds, and slept for an hour. I put him down for his second nap. Again, he cried for less than a minute and slept for 3 hours. Then I put him down for a third nap, and after barely fussing, he slept for 45 minutes. I feel like we have a brand new baby, and I feel like a brand new mom. I did laundry, made dinner, played with Meili several times, even wrote a blog post. I hope this keeps up, because life was good today.
I feel like an idiot that the solution was so simple, but, hey, if I didn't make life more difficult for myself than it needed to be than I wouldn't be Kaleena.
I took a few pictures of our handsome man in his blessing outfit, since we didn't get many the day of. He sure is a cute little guy when he's not sleep deprived, and I like him a whole lot better when I'm not sleep deprived either.
-He has rolled over a few times. He would be better at it if we did tummy time more often, but when you have a baby who is already grumpy, tummy time doesn't sound as appealing.
-He's got a strong neck, and can hold his head up pretty well.
-He smiles, and has started to try to talk-which is my favorite thing in the world.
-For all the sleep trouble we've had during the day, he does pretty well at night. Around 11:00, it's really easy to get him to go to sleep, and he usually wakes up between 2 and 3, and then again between 6 and 7. But most of the time, he falls right back to sleep, which is the part that matters the most to me. I can feed him, I just can't stay up with him when he decides it's time to party.
-And Meili is still really awesome with her, and he just kind of puts up with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment